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A woman walks the battlefield, in long, black mourning dress. In one hand she carries a lantern, while the is other used to lift her skirts above the mud. Around her is no sound but the cries of the crows, and no person but the corpses of those abandoned by the armies as too far gone to save.
Those corpses are still warm, however, and that warmth is very much the point.
Outside of wartime, any of the bodies would be suitable enough, but such an excess grants her the ability to be picky. The survivors of the battle have retreated already, but it has not yet been long enough for either side to come collect their dead. The blood in the mud has congealed already, that in the bodies just starting to turn. Clouds loom low and overhead; soon enough a rainstorm will wash the stench of death away.
It is only coming, however, not here yet; the woman keeps her lantern held high, assessing the bodies in their turn.
While any would be suitable, the ability to be picky is a delightful novelty. Those who have died to bayonets have bled more than the rest, making their consumption inefficient. When one is crushed by large projectiles, and it becomes harder to extract the blood, while all sorts of other wounds come with significant blood loss attached. She prefers her meals slightly warm, and, despite the battle having been over for long enough for the moon to rise, a couple of war's victims are only recently dead.
Those with wounds too severe to treat, or who simply were not found by their fellow soldiers.
Every now and again she will pick out a body, and drive the pole from which her lantern hangs in the swampish mud beneath it. Unable to save her skirts from the dirt in these moment, she kneels beside her selections, analyzing the bodies once again. For those she is satisfied with she withdraws a knife, and cuts a ribbon.
And then, if blood still flows, she feasts.
She has teeth designed for this, yes, but it is easier to stay clean using the knife. It keeps her hands clean enough to lift the edge of her veil, allowing her to lick the blood from wounds she herself has cut. She licks, and she drinks, and she feasts herself on the blood of the war dead.
And then she leaves the flesh for the beasts.
In peacetime she sometimes has to eat the flesh as well, to extract every last bit of nutrition. With war on their fields? She can instead leave the parts less useful to other carrion feeders.
For a time the woman wanders from body to body, choosing which and whom to consume.
And then, from close by, she hears ragged breaths.
The woman freezes, and waits. Assessing. Tilts her head just slightly, making it easier to narrow down the source of the sound.
It is not... unheard of to find living injured on these battlefield walks, but it is uncommon. Even those who do not know what stalks blood-spun nights have heard rumors, and so the removal of the living is one of the first priorities after bloodshed. Carrion feeders do not only come in an animal form.
Part of her calls for a fresher meal than most, to drink from the living and not from the dead.
Another, deeper, stronger part, one that remembers what it was to be human and what it was to be afraid, raises her lantern high.
She listens a little longer, identifying the source, and then strides through the mud on certain feet.
When she arrives, she does not expect green eyes to track her approach, nor for them to flick to her lantern like a moth to the flame.
Living people are rare.
Ones with any level of consciousness... She has not approached one on these walks before.
This soldier is not long for the world, at least. They are also not one that the woman would choose to eat; something long and sharp has slashed through their stomach, tearing open skin and organs alike. She can see bits of flesh mixed with the blood around, and suspects the wolves will enjoy feasting from that stomach tonight. Then, from within that cut, another, smaller wound reaches up, cutting through the lung and leaving the blood to pool within. Each heaved breath comes with a little blood to the lips, even as eyes remained fixed to the light.
How they are alive, she does not know.
Still the woman plants her lantern, and comes to sit at their side.
"Good evening," she tells the non-corpse, not really expecting an answer. "I am Constance. Please, do not worry; I will not leave you to die alone."
Words she has spoken before.
Words she will likely speak again.
To feed and predate is for survival.
To be kind is what it means to be /alive/.
"A light," comes a choked voice, every splutter accompanied by blood; Constance, the woman, the vampire, wishes to drink it, but instead uses a handkerchief to clean it away. "You- you-"
The voice is surprisingly soft, despite the injury and the pain; women on the battlefields are far from unheard of, but are certainly in a minority.
"You do not need to speak," Constance tells her. "I will stay, until it is dark."
"You came to take me?" The soldier - the other, injured woman - before her asks, still heavily. "Angel?"
"No angel," she wipes away a little more blood, gentle in her ministrations. "Nothing of the sort."
"Vampire?"
So, the stories have indeed spread.
This woman, however, she does not look upon Constance with fear or dread, or any other emotion her kind's presence usually seeds. Instead it is almost a light, someone finally proven right after a long lifetime of being told they speak false.
"Yes," Constance simply replies. "But I will not feed from you yet. Not until you are dead. I will not hurt you, while there is a you to be hurt."
Perhaps even not then; Constance reaches out, and takes the woman's hand. It is still warmer than her own, despite the injury and the mud.
"Please," a laugh, and with it the choking on her own blood - was this woman even injured in the fighting, or was it something or someone else? Her wounds are no less severe than those of the dead, and yet somehow she clings on. "Not darkness. Not yet."
"I'll stay," Constance assures, already mourning for what must have been a pretty young thing, beneath the muck and the grime and hair crudely cut to fit beneath a helmet. "The light will stay."
"I don't want to die."
"Nobody ever does."
"You could..." she breaks off, choking harder, blood splattering across her face.
Constance stops trying to clean it, just offers a comforting hand nonetheless.
"It is not a kindness," she replies, knowing just what is desired by all those who fear death, by those she is sequestered from, except by chance and on nights like this.
"Please..."
With wounds like these, she will not last another hour; Constance could go continue feeding, and come back to this one later. She could take a knife to the woman's throat, and put her from her suffering. No medic can heal those wounds.
There isn't even one left to try.
That she regained consciousness at all is impressive, a feat of human ingenuity and baffling stamina.
Perhaps that is the kindest thing, to kill her quickly and to feast.
But, Constance... Constance remembers what it was to be human, to be afraid. To cling to life beyond the point it is possible. To hide beneath the floorboards as the enemy tears through the building, for the building to collapse as it burns. She knows what it is to be injured beyond saving, to have scars upon her skin. And she knows the feeling of a hand in her own, of begging to continue, of blood placed in her mouth and asked to swallow or die.
She has never been a soldier or a warrior, but she, too, was plucked from the ruins of war once and long ago.
Mind made up, she offers the third option.
"Your wounds will kill you," Constance says, with none of the delicate charm she uses to lure people to death and to sleep, and only a little gentleness to spare. "Even if I were a medic, your organs were cut. Your lungs are filling with blood, and either you will bleed out, or you will drown."
Terror fills the woman's eyes, though as she goes to speak her body spasms instead. With energy her body does not have she coughs again, blood splattering across both her own face and Constance's intentionally black dress.
Constance wipes the worst of it from her cheeks, motions gentle even when her words are not.
"I can offer you a choice," she says, doubting coherency but respecting consciousness all the same. "I leave you to die, I kill you faster, or... I could give you the means that death is not the end. As was done to me."
The woman does not have the strength left to reply, her eyes barely open as she struggles and heaves for breath. With a heavy heart Constance takes her knife, pricking her own finger until it sluggishly bleeds. The blood of the dead is a sticky black, but still it forces its way out.
She places the bleeding finger to the woman's lips.
"If you want to return," she says, more gently now. "Take my blood, and swallow."
If it will hold, it takes just a drop.
The woman either hesitates, or else takes time to process. By the time she licks the blood and swallows it, a fair amount has been built up. Not enough to choke her any worse than she is already choking, but enough.
"Good girl," Constance whispers, leaning down and kissing a bloodied brow. "It will just hurt for a little while, and then no more pain, never again."
To return as a vampire, one first must die.
Constance holds the woman as she dies, keeps the body cradled in her arms. She sees the misunderstanding betrayal as ruined lungs struggle for air, and as her blood continues to drip away.
It is a few minutes before it is all too much, and the lady in her arms passes out. Still she struggles for breath, with the human instinct to breathe. Constance strokes her hair and soothes her brow, and pretends that there is anything she can do to comfort the transition.
It takes a painfully long time before the woman's heart begins to stutter. Too weak, too shallow, starved of what it needs. Even then it fights, desynchronising before it fails. The stuttering heartbeat, the desperate rasps as she fails to breathe...
Death is ugly, and messy. Constance can only cradle the woman as her heart finally fails. Through the last gasp of air, through the last, ruined beat.
Then she shifts the corpse in her arms, moving how it lies. As a matter of practicality she lays the head in her lap, and spreads the rest out flat. With a vulture's eyes she stares, willing for the blood to properly take, for this woman to not be one of the few who are immune, for whom this would be a lie.
That is not so, however; as Constance watches, she sees the way flesh slowly begins to knit together. It will have started on the inside, but now it comes to where she can see it. She leans down, gently easing the wounds closed with her fingers; the magic of a vampire's blood latches on, holding the skin and binding it. Everything is knit back into place, the healing fragile for now, but enough.
Eyes blink open, and a hand grasps at Constance's arm. Not tearing her eyes from where she watches the wounds Constance reaches up, placing her hand over the woman's, squeezing lightly and with comfort.
"You're okay," she promises, not looking. "Everything's okay. Just another minute, then I'll teach you to feed. You're hungry, I'm sure."
Not every vampire is, but the more there is to heal, the hungrier the vampire awakens. This is not the worst Constance has seen, but it is close to it; only the heart must remain intact for a siring to take, but it is easier the more flesh there is.
The last of the skin seals, and Constance decides that it is enough. Coherency will not fully return until the new vampire has fed, so best to get that and their conversations done soon.
She removes the hand from her arm, but keeps holding it, squeezing it reassuringly.
"Now, get up, dear one," she says, a smile on her lips. "We'll find you a nice corpse from the other side to drain. I think I saw one over there..."
Two women walk the battlefield, both in long black mourning dress. One carries a lantern, the other keeps a wicked knife at her side. Around her is no sound but the cries of the crows, and no person but the corpses of those abandoned by the armies as too far gone to save.
The bodies are still warm, however, and that is very much the point.